"The feeble, the feckless and the maladroit had been chewed up and spat out
long ago" - Jonathan Liew finds out what it takes to be one of
the 250 chosen ones... and is not up to the task.

The Wimbledon gate attendant raises an eyebrow as he points me in the direction of the indoor courts.

"Ball boy training? Bit big for a ball boy, aren't you?"

Less than an hour later, as I lie flat on my back, desperately sucking air into my lungs, I am painfully aware that height is the least of my worries. As well as being a bit big, I am a bit fat, a bit slow, a bit unfit, a bit inflexible. Generally a bit of a wreck.

This was not how the dream was supposed to die. This was supposed to be one last attempt to redeem the starry-eyed possibility of my childhood years, one final stab at doing that little man with big ideas some modicum of justice. Now, as I try to suppress the ferric taste of blood at the back of my throat, it is official. I will never play guitar for Oasis. I will never be an extra in Brookside. And I will never, ever be a Wimbledon ball boy.

In a sense, I was unlucky. With less than a fortnight to go until the start of the Championships, the 70 school-age recruits in my group were tough, battle-hardened marines of the court. They had been training since the dark evenings of late winter: every week, for up to two and a half hours at a time.

The feeble, the feckless and the maladroit amongst them had been chewed up and spat out long ago; victims of the ruthless, Darwinian process of elimination by which the All England Club selects the 250 child-machines who will serve during Wimbledon fortnight. What I was dealing with here was nothing less than an elite Republican Guard of ball boys and ball girls. In retrospect, a mildly overweight ex-smoker whose principal exercise derives from looking for the remote control was always going to struggle.

My intentions were noble. My expectations, on the other hand, were wildly off the mark. After all, we have all watched Wimbledon on television, seen those delightful purple urchins scuttling around on the Centre Court grass and thought: "Even I could do that." What a jolly little romp it looks.

Stand around for a bit, roll some tennis balls around, throw Pat Cash his towel and then retire to the mess for orange barley drinks. Every now and again Mansour Bahrami hands you his racket and asks you to play in a legends match while he has a sit-down. Best summer job ever.

But what few of us ever see is the months of dehumanising graft that goes into it. As I am handed my dark blue Ralph Lauren polo shirt and tracksuit bottoms, I glance down at the number 238 on my front. Wimbledon ball boys are referred to not by their name, but by their number. Each week, in true reality-show fashion, a certain proportion of the children are sent the dreaded email telling them not to return. The realisation dawns that 238 must have been one of the kids who never made it.

"That's why it's quite high-pressure," says Sarah Goldson, Wimbledon's head of ball-boy training. "They know each week that they’re not necessarily safe. They know what the boundaries are in terms of behaviour. And they know there is no second chance."

The children are arranged in lines across the court for warm-up exercises. Number 238 perches nervously in the second row, hands tucked tightly behind his back. One of Goldson's lieutenants, a drill-sergeant type with greying temples, shouts instructions. "Receive!" Down on bended knee. "Feed!" Seventy right arms shoot into the air. "Tuck your shirt in, number 238!"

"A lot of it is traditional," Goldson says. "It started from a military-type background, which is why they all stand in lines."

For most of the year, Goldson teaches PE at a sixth-form college and referees for the Lawn Tennis Association. But to the 700 boys and girls who turn up for initial training in February, she is the keeper of their dreams.

Does Goldson think the children fear her? "Possibly," she says. "The whole sort of ethos of the training is pretty strict. They know from the start what we will and won't accept."

But it is the physical element that is most startling. I mean, I play tennis. How can ball-fetching possibly be more enervating than that? We start with jogging on the spot, which is easy enough, as are the simple shoulder stretches that follow. But as soon as we enter interval-sprint territory, number 238 begins to flag. The sprints are interspersed with squat-thrusts and star jumps, and occasionally 'burpees' - that macabre, sadistic amalgam of the two. Within seconds, sweat beads have formed on 238's brow. Within minutes, 238's spinal column is in excruciating pain, his lungs screaming for a halt.

After what seems like about an hour, but which I am later informed is a little under eight minutes, my back gives up. I stagger off the court in a mild daze and find a darkened corridor in which to collapse. My hands have not even touched a tennis ball.

With remarkable tact, Goldson delivers her verdict. "Your basic skills were all right at the start, considering it was your first go," she says. "The instructors spoke a little bit about your wrist. It's all about the lever in your arm. The ball is not thrown, it's fed."

By this stage, her words barely register. In a small voice, bordering on a plaintive wail, I tell her a short story. It is a story of unconsummated ambitions, of one child's horizons and one man's squandered promise. Most of all, it is a story about dashed dreams. Goldson waits until I have finished. "I see," she says. "Do you play the guitar well, then?"